I. The Family of Rats 9 II. A Clap-trap Discovery 15 III. Poorer than Rats 19 IV. How I made a Friend 26 V. How Bob met with an Adventure 33 VI. How I visited the Zoological Gardens 38 VII. Finding Relations 43 VIII. How I heard of Old Neighbours 51 IX. How we found a Feast 59 X. The want of a Dentist 67 XI. A Removal 74 XII. A New Road to Fame 79 XIII. How I set out on my Voyage 86 XIV. A Terrible Word 94 XV. First View of St. Petersburg 103 XVI. A Russian Kitchen 109 XVII. A Ramble over St. Petersburg 118 XVIII. How we were Transported 125 XIX. A Storm and its Consequences 132 XX. Catch him--Dead or Alive! 137 XXI. A new kind of Watch-dog 146 XXII. The Farmer and his Bride 153 XXIII. A Peep through the Roses 163 [Decoration] [Illustration: A L O E] THE RAMBLES OF A RAT. CHAPTER I. THE FAMILY OF RATS. My very earliest recollection is of running about in a shed adjoining a large warehouse, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Poplar, and close to the River Thames, which thereabouts is certainly no silver stream. A merry life we led of it in that shed, my seven brothers and I! It was a sort of palace of rubbish, a mansion of odds and ends, where rats might frolic and gambol, and play at hide-and-seek, to their hearts' content. We had nibbled a nice little way into the warehouse above mentioned; and there, every night, we feasted at our ease, growing as sleek and plump as any rats in the United Kingdom. We were of an ancient race of British rats, my seven brothers and I. It is said that our ancestors came over with the Conqueror, William; and we are not a little proud of our Norman descent. Our smaller forms, sleek black coats, long tails, and fine large ears, make us altogether distinct from the Norwegian brown rat, on which we look with-- I was going to say with contempt, but I rather think that it is quite another feeling, and one to which neither rats nor men generally like to plead guilty. I know that we do not usually choose to keep company with them; but whether it be because their forms are coarser, their manners less refined, and their pedigree not so long, or whether it be because they sometimes have a fancy to nibble off the ears of their neighbours, or, when their appetite is uncommonly sharp, make a meal of their Norman cousins, we need not particularly inquire.